


Saxophonists and Other Weirdos

by missmariie



Series: Retail Detail [5]
Category: Castle
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Retail, Humor, Inappropriate Humor, M/M, past Ryan/Jenny, pianist!kevin, singer!Lanie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-13 02:43:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4504617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmariie/pseuds/missmariie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What are old friends for, if not to bring up your awkward breakups and horrifically embarrass you in front of the guy you kind of sort of might be dating?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Between finally getting a new computer, and logging in today to find some kind encouragement, I've got stuck back into this series. 
> 
> The boys are finally inching closer together, and there's only a few installments left. Do you think I can officially tag this as 'slow build' yet?

Javier plonked the Panda Express box down on the plastic table and pulled up a chair across from where Kevin appeared to be sunning himself in the only corner of the food court the skylight reached. 

Kevin yawned, stretching himself out and blinking sluggishly. 

“Falling asleep on me bro?” Javier asked him, tucking in to the Mongolian beef. 

“S’been a weird day.” Kevin replied, pulling a box towards himself and chowing down without even stopping to look inside. 

“We got these, um,” he waved his chopsticks in the air as he continued, “bra stuffer fillet things in. They make really good juggling balls.” 

Javier snorted.

“’Course they do.” 

“Rick started it.” 

As Kevin shrugged cheerfully, a pair of arms pulled around his neck and squashed him into a crushing hug. 

“Kevin Ryan! Fancy seeing you here. Fancy seeing you at all, really.” said the woman the arms belonged to, her eyes sparkling with mischief. 

“Lanie!” Kevin exclaimed, wriggling backwards into the hug and grinning up at her. 

She ruffled his hair and snapped a photo of him with her phone as she slipped down into a chair at their table. 

“What was that for!?” Kevin demanded, gesturing at her phone. 

“Brian Nguyen started a rumour that you died, and there’s not a lot of evidence to the contrary sweetie.” 

“ _Brian Nguyen_ is a weirdo.” 

She nodded agreeably and stole one of Kevin’s noodles. 

“Saxophonists.” she told Javier, shaking her head. 

Javier decided that nodding along was the safest option. 

Kevin ran his hand through his hair and looked between them nervously. 

“Right. So, Javier, this is Lanie. She’s an old friend from uni. Lanie, this is Javier.”

“Yo.” Javier greeted her, burying himself in his lunch. 

Lanie chuckled. 

“Hey there.” 

 

“Honey, how come none of us have seen you for six months?” Lanie asked Kevin, taking his chopsticks and digging into his food.

Kevin shrugged. 

“It’s busy here. Besides, there’s no point having me around at the moment. I can’t play.” 

He waved his left hand at her. 

“There’s more than one use for those clever fingers Kev. Do you have any idea how annoying Jenny is when she’s sexually frustrated?” 

“No, not really.” Kevin replied, smiling sweetly at her as he stole his noodles back. 

Javier nearly choked on his coke. 

Lanie shook her head and gave Kevin a long look. 

“You _do_ realise we broke up more than three years ago, right?” Kevin told her, poking at his noodles more violently than was probably necessary. 

“Never stopped the two of you before.” 

Javier gawked between them, and caught Kevin’s guilty grimace in his direction. 

“Jenny was my high school sweetheart.” he explained, “And only high school. Despite what Lanie might tell you, we split up about three months into uni.” 

“Mmhmmm.” Lanie interjected, “Never stopped them from making like rabbits though.” 

Kevin blushed to the tip of his ears. 

“Hey, we were together for five years. It’s _comfortable_.” 

“Honey, the walls of that apartment are paper thin. The whole damn school knows it’s a bit more than _comfortable_.” 

Kevin made a few inarticulate noises and slumped onto the table, burying his face in his arms. 

“Oh, I’ve gotta head.” Lanie told them, gathering up her handbag and ruffling the part of Kevin’s hair that was poking out of his slouch. “I better see you at Elinor’s party this weekend.”

She breezed off. 

Kevin poked an eye out from the crook of his elbow. 

“Is it over?” he asked. 

His face was still flaming.


	2. Chapter 2

Javier shifted his noodles around in the paper box, watching Kevin slowly unfold himself and return to his natural colouring. The food looked a lot less appealing than it had five minutes earlier. 

Of _course_ Kevin had an ex-girlfriend he was still fucking. How dumb could Javier be? As if he was the only one who had noticed Kevin’s bright blue eyes and earnest smile. Not every guy Javier was into was going to be gay. So much for their ‘date’. 

“Well that was mortifying.” Kevin said conversationally, taking a swig of Javier’s coke. 

Javier snorted, and kept his eyes firmly fixed on the pitted plastic of the table. 

“Lanie’s Jenny’s best friend and housemate.” Kevin explained, tapping his fingers on his chair, “They’re both singers. Obviously, as a pianist you end up spending a lot of time with the singers, so…”

That caught Javier’s attention, and he let his eyes flick up to catch Kevin’s guileless smile. 

“You’re a pianist?” 

“Not much of one at the moment.” Kevin told him sadly, pulling a face at his left hand. “RSI’s a bitch. Still, give it another couple of months and I should be right again.” 

“Piano and an ex? Keeping secrets bro?” Javier asked him, trying for a light tone and missing completely. 

Kevin chewed on his lip for a moment, his eyebrows drawing in to paint little wriggles across his forehead. 

“Ignore Lanie. Jenny and I really aren’t together anymore.” 

“Yeah?” Javier caught himself asking hopefully. 

Kevin stilled, except for a chopstick poking absently at his lunch. His eyes were soft and distant, but there was a determined edge to his jaw. 

“I fucked up.” he explained, “I mean, it wasn’t pretty on Jenny’s end afterwards, but that doesn’t change what I did.

“It’s funny,” he continued, and he really did smile, although it was small and a little bit pained, “it’s like I broke us up, and Jenny ensured we’d never get back together.”

Kevin lay his hands out on the table, fingers splayed wide, and looked up at Javier like a man awaiting judgement. 

Javier wasn’t feeling particularly charitable at that moment. 

“You don’t _sound_ very broken up.” 

Kevin shrugged.

“It’s just sex. And I haven’t seen her for six months.” 

“You’re going to the party though.” Javier guessed. 

Kevin plucked the Mongolian beef away from Javier and began to poke through it. The flush on the tips of his ears was back. 

“I’ll go. Not to see Jenny though. I mean, I’ll see her, but we won’t… No sex.” he told Javier, his usual bright smile returning with the same enthusiasm as his blush. “I think it’s time to make room for other things. You know, better things.” 

Kevin beamed over at Javier for a moment, blushing furiously, and then stared down into his noodle box like it contained the instructions to a long fulfilling life. 

Javier studied him across the table. What was that meant to mean? Because it sounded a bit like Kevin meant that _he_ was the better thing. He leant across the table, carried by a surge of courage. 

“Oh _shit!_ ” 

Kevin’s eyes went wide as saucers. His gaze had landed on Javier’s watch. 

“I was meant to get back to work ten minutes ago! Rick’s probably held an orgy or something!”

Kevin made an ungainly exit, his jacket catching his chair as he scrambled away and shot off back to Cotton On. Javier caught the chair before it fell and kicked it neatly back into place. 

What the hell was he meant to do about Kevin Ryan?

 

* * *

 

Two hours of a dead store and some extensive facebook stalking later, Javier was no closer to a solution for his Kevin Ryan problem. Jenny was definitely pretty, and up until the beginning of the year, there was only about a four month space where she was absent from photos Kevin was tagged in. From the timing, and how brittle Kevin’s smile looked in those pictures, he’d worked out that it probably coincided with their break up. 

There was also, Javier noticed with interest, a picture of Kevin kissing another bloke at some point. Unfortunately, it was pretty easy to deduce from the photos around that one that it was from a game of spin the bottle, which made it an unreliable indicator of sexuality at best. Especially given the amount of alcohol visible in the frame. 

“Any luck?” Beckett asked as she sunk down on the seat beside him. 

“Huh?” 

Javier pocketed his phone quickly and tried to look innocent. 

“Any luck trying to fry your phone with your mind? I thought you only bought that thing a few weeks ago.” 

“I wanna test the warranty.” 

“Right.” 

Beckett stretched, still watching him out of the corner of her eye.

“You know, if you keep looking so miserable, I’ll be forced to ask you what’s wrong.” she told him. 

Javier took her threat to make him talk about his feelings very seriously. Beckett was the only person he knew who hated that mushy shit more than he did.

“Don’t worry about me Becks. Look, I’m all smiles.” 

He painted what he was sure began as an unconvincing smile across his face, but as she laughed at him, it slid into something genuine. He let himself be bolstered by Beckett’s grin and the promise he thought he’d seen on Kevin’s face.

**Author's Note:**

> Only three stories to go in this series!


End file.
